


Emergence

by Calico, Habernero



Series: Inopportune Moments [3]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Fix-It, Harry Lives, M/M, Mission Fic, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-05 11:37:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4178328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calico/pseuds/Calico, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Habernero/pseuds/Habernero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second time Harry woke up in hospital, he <i>was</i> surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No longer canon compliant. ;)
> 
> Thanks again to julad and wreathed.

The second time Harry woke up in hospital, he _was_ surprised. He remembered—nothing, at first, and then hazy images started to occur to him, dreamlike, of America, a church, righteous wrath, an unsanctioned orgy of violence. And Valentine. _Not that kind of movie_. 

Harry tried to lift a hand to his face, but nothing moved. His fingers didn’t even twitch. He swallowed against a rawness in his throat and attempted in vain to open his eyes, and even that small effort brought on a wave of a shimmering exhaustion. Perhaps later.

He floated back off into blackness for an unknowable time; Merlin was there when he woke up again. 

“Gave us a scare, Galahad,” he said, when Harry’s eyes had focused.

Harry wet his lips, finding to his relief that his face worked again. “Valentine?”

“Sorted,” Merlin said. “Five weeks ago. Your boy came through.” He paused, his voice turning crisp. “Arthur—did not.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Merlin said. “Pretty shit.”

Harry tried to see himself in Merlin’s eyes. “So what’s the damage?”

“Worldwide chaos, massive loss of life, international politics like a horde of unmedicated schizophrenics out speed-dating.”

“I see,” Harry said, and Merlin saw, of course he saw; Merlin always saw. 

“The damage to _you_ , meanwhile—”

Harry pressed his lips together, bracing for nerve damage, brain damage, epilepsy.

“—Was nothing a few units of blood and a world-class plastic surgeon couldn’t handle,” Merlin said, though the tightness around his eyes suggested they hadn’t always been that confident. “Your glasses took the brunt of it. Shattered. The ophthalmologists were rather excited. Almost unseemly.”

Harry closed first one eye, then the other. “Vision seems to be intact,” he said.

Merlin stared at him for a long, long moment. “You’re a lucky bastard and no mistake,” he said eventually. 

“Mm,” Harry said. He looked around the room; there no one else present. His next question seemed inappropriate, but there was suddenly nothing else he could think to ask. “And… where is Eggsy?”

Merlin always saw; whatever went across Harry’s face at that moment was definitely seen. “Venice, actually.” 

“Oh,” Harry said, and searched for something lighthearted to say. The words came haltingly, feeling foreign on his tongue. “Cultivating, er, an interest in… Neo-Baroque architecture?”

Merlin was gracious enough not to show any pity. “More like practising for an Assassin’s Creed LARP.” 

Harry waited for the syllables to make sense. When sense failed to materialise, he frowned. “I’m sorry, was my… hearing? Checked?”

Merlin smirked. “We may need to give you a crash course on Millennial subcultures,” he said. “In the meantime…” He produced a glasses case. “Here - you can check in on him, if you like.” 

Even across a video link, the colours of Venice were almost too much for Harry to bear. Cerulean panels of canal water flanking every sunlit terracotta street, cross-hatched with delicately wrought bridges and scattered with small workboats floating like so much discarded artisan litter. And in amongst it all, trotting like he was on patrol without looking left or right: the pug. 

Never had Harry thought he’d be so glad to see the little runt.

He switched the glasses feed off. ”Good. Well. Excellent.”

“He’s infiltrating a cellar containing a pair of chemically-engineered bioweapons,” Merlin said, and Harry thought he could hear a note of apology in his voice. “Essential stuff. We wouldn’t normally send a rookie, but it’s important, so we’ve sent two.”

“Roxy?” 

Merlin nodded. “Lancelot.”

“Ah. Yes, of course.” Lancelot. Well, he had to hand it to her - she was every bit the knight Harry had hoped Eggsy would be. Seemed obvious now. “How is she?”

“Fantastic,” Merlin said. Then, “They both are. In different ways.”

“I’m sure,” Harry said, and then, before he could stop himself, “Eggsy - does he know about me?”

Merlin gave him a sharp look. “He knows you’re in a coma. Poor prognosis. Come on,” he added, seeing something in Harry’s expression, “we need him out there, not pining away at your bedside.”

“Of course, of course,” Harry said, nodding. 

One of the picture frames on the wall was electronic, currently showing a lurid shot of hothouse flowers. Harry transferred the glasses’ feed to it, and they both watched for a moment. Eggsy’s gloved hands came into view as he scaled a wall and then there was a soft thump as he dropped, light-footed, onto a dusty street leading down to a picturesque canal-side square dotted with striped awnings.

Harry rubbed his jaw; the blasted beard was back and it looked like this time he’d need a professional barber. “He seems fine.”

“He’s not _fine_ ,” Merlin said quietly. 

Eggsy bought an ice cream from a pretty girl at a gelato stall. “Grazi mille, bella,” he said, in the Italian accent Harry had taught him, and the girl’s eyes brightened in reply to whatever was in Eggsy’s expression.

“He’s doing okay,” Merlin allowed. 

Harry reached for a glass of water. His mouth still tasted raw, and the sound of Eggsy’s voice directed at some random _commessa_ stuck in his throat. “What sort of bioweapons?”

Mercifully, Merlin took out his phone and replaced the feed - of Eggsy catching drips of ice cream with his tongue whilst the girl watched and smiled - with a fiendish-looking schematic and a dense paragraph of chemical equations. “It’s the reactive core of this thing,” Merlin said. “Releases an airborne vapour that’s part soporific, part hepatotoxic. The victim sleeps for three days then wakes up bright yellow with a nasty case of fulminant liver failure.”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “Range?”

“No idea.”

“And in whose hands is it, presently?”

“Marcella Dorriata, the estranged great-niece of Roberto Ilsigliente,” Merlin said. 

“The mobster.” 

“The very same. Estranged when he murdered three generations of her paternal family in one sitting. Pre-Valentine.”

“Lovely,” Harry said. “I can see why you sent both of them.”

“We’ve identified a Venetian safe-house near the Arsenale where the anaesthetic component is most likely being stored. Lancelot’s on her way there now, while Lamorak scopes out Dorriata and her cohort. If Lancelot can infiltrate before any alarm is raised, the two of them will attempt to rendezvous in our best guess as to the device’s location and either disable or sabotage the operation.”

“Quite a lot of guesswork,” Harry said, neutrally. _Lamorak_. 

Merlin lifted his chin. “We’re a bit thin on the ground.”

“Of course,” Harry said. “Scale of the depletion?”

“Forty per cent.”

Fuck. “Who’s left?”

“In the field? Percival, Gareth, and Kay,” Merlin said, then added, almost casual, “And of course, Lancelot and Lamorak, for whom this is all something of a learning cliff.”

 _Fuck_. “I see.” 

Merlin regarded him for a moment, then gave a desultory chuckle and shook his head. “No, you don’t, but you will.” He flashed Harry a rueful grin. “At least with you technically conscious again we’re pushing forty-two per cent now, eh?”

Harry laughed. “Cock,” he said. “Two per cent? I’ll have you know, I’m worth at least… three.”

“Generous,” Merlin said, the grin turning warm for a moment. Then he sighed and clapped Harry on the shoulder, voice gruff. “Thanks for waking up. It’s fucking good to see another grown-up, even if he’s confined to bed rest for two weeks.”

Harry’s answering smile froze on his face. “ _Two weeks_?”

Duly summoned, Dr Patel, a cheerful Indian woman with a glossy black ponytail, was unmoved by Harry’s plight. “More than my job’s worth, sweetheart. Once we see a reassuring trend in inflammatory markers, then we can talk.”

Harry tried another tack. Looked into her eyes. Faint, imploring smile. “Not even if I’m feeling _much_ better…?”

“Good,” she replied, politely. “But we don’t really work on subjective analysis here.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “So I’m a prisoner.”

The doctor’s eyes narrowed back at him. “Certainly not,” she said. “You are welcome to leave at any time, provided you sign a form saying you self-discharge against medical advice and assume full responsibility for any morbidity or mortality that should result from this action.”

“Ah! Great,” Harry said, looking around for a pen. “Do you have the form on you?”

Merlin cleared his throat. “No, she doesn’t, and she won’t.”

Harry frowned at him. “You’re not seriously saying you expect me to lie around here whilst we’re at _forty per cent capacity_.”

“Arthur discharged himself early from hospital, once,” Merlin said. “You know what happened? He didn’t shit for nine days and then he went mad. Turned out the excess bowel gas had started pickling his brain.”

Harry gave him a faintly aghast look. “That’s not true.”

The doctor smirked at Merlin, but didn’t say anything helpful like, _Oh no, that could never happen_.

“They gave him three enemas before he went back to normal,” Merlin said, looking Harry straight in the eyes. “ _Three_ , Harry. Is that what you want?”

“I—no,” Harry said, quickly. “I can safely say that I don’t want that.”

“So you’re staying put,” Merlin said, patting his shoulder, and nodded at the doctor. “He asks for that form, you just contact me on the usual channels.”

“Will do,” she said, and left them to it. 

“I am a fucking prisoner, then,” Harry said bitterly. “I’m _your_ fucking prisoner. Two weeks out of action while we’re in this state - it’s unconscionable, Merlin.”

“Please,” Merlin said. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to put you to work.”

Harry looked at him with wary hope. “Oh?”

Merlin handed him a tablet. “I told you we’re thin on the ground,” he said. “I’ve got to go to Washington. At least twelve hours. I need you to run point on Lancelot while I’m away.”

“On Lancelot,” Harry said. 

“All the information you should need is in here,” Merlin said, tapping the tablet. “I’ve given you access to the whole Kingsman database. Safe in the knowledge,” he added, “that what with you confined to this room, there is minimal opportunity for you to lose it, share it or blow it up.”

Harry nodded vaguely, mind on other matters. “And, ah, who…?”

“Gareth’s holding Lamorak’s leash,” Merlin said, then twitched a grim smile. “Trying to, anyway.”

Conflicting thoughts buffeted him: that Roxy still wasn’t who came to mind when Harry thought of _Lancelot_ ; that Gareth would have no idea about what to do with Eggsy’s incisive crudeness; that Gareth wouldn’t have any idea about Eggsy whatsoever; that it shouldn’t be anyone other than Harry holding Eggsy’s leash; and, last but not least, _Eggsy on a leash_ , why the fuck had Merlin gifted him with that image, was he insane? 

“Right,” Harry said. “Is he the best person to be handling Lamorak?”

“He’s the most stable person,” Merlin said, without any note of apology.

Harry set his jaw. “It should be me.”

“It shouldn’t be you,” Merlin replied easily. “You’re forty minutes out of a coma and about a hundred miles south of a healthy situation with that boy. Meanwhile he can’t get within a fifteen yard radius of you without going cross-eyed or cracking one out - apart from while you were unconscious,” he added, as if that would soften the blow. “He was upset about that, and not at all horny.”

Harry stared at the wall for a moment. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll run point on Lancelot.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who want a visual for Gareth: **[this is Gareth](http://ukcalico.tumblr.com/post/122195289358/gareth-from-emergence-by-calico-habernero)**. 
> 
> You're welcome.
> 
> *

“Lancelot,” Harry said, once he’d spent some time with Merlin’s precious tablet and familiarised himself with the available information on this mission. “Congratulations.”

To her credit, Roxy’s voice didn’t betray any note of surprise. Maybe Merlin had pre-warned her. “Galahad,” she said, warmly. “An honour.”

“I understand you have the presumed base about half a mile west of your present location,” Harry said, zooming in on the map of the Arsonale di Venezia. “I was reviewing the blueprints and wondered if an aerial assault would be preferable.”

“I would prefer the subterranean approach,” Roxy said. “I think it’s feasible in a shorter timeframe. But if aerial is your recommendation—“

“No, no, subterranean will be fine,” Harry said. “As long as you’ve considered all the options.”

“I have.” 

He didn’t doubt her. “Very good,” he sad. “Carry on.”

He had Eggsy’s feed running in the picture frame on the wall, sound muted. There wasn’t much to see, at present - Eggsy was tailing an exquisitely smart young woman around Dolce & Gabbana, making occasional surveillance notes on the screen - but Harry kept it open, for no reason he was examining too closely right now. Even though he didn’t have a view of Eggsy himself, seeing the world through his eyes was better than nothing. 

He wondered if Merlin had sent word, or if Eggsy was still oblivious to Harry’s improvement. He could contact him himself—even as he thought it, Eggsy approached the mark where she was browsing a selection of black silk shirts, and Harry sat up a little straighter. Bold choice. He turned the sound back on in time to hear Eggsy say to her, in a cut-glass British accent, “—look smashing, I’m sure.”

The mark looked at him. Very attractive, with dark eyebrows arched in contempt. “Excuse me?” she said, heavily accented and rich with disdain.

“I said it would look smashing on you, I’m sure,” Eggsy said loudly, and then laughed, almost braying. “Sorry, where’re my manners? Rupert Stone.” He held out his hand, all confident expectation. 

The mark looked at his hand, eyebrows telegraphing distaste. “Please, now is a bad time.”

Eggsy let the hand hang there. ”Oh no, really?” he boomed, and leaned in a little. “Sorry to hear that! What’s wrong?”

“None of your concern. Please, I am very busy.”

“No need to be like that,” Eggsy protested cheerfully, a smile in his voice, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a white monogrammed business card. “Here. I’m sure you can’t be busy all week. When you get a little window, why not be a darling and give me a call?”

She took the card, then looked him in the eye and pointedly dropped it to the floor. “No thank you,” she said, and turned back to the shirts. 

Harry was watching for it, so he saw it happen: Eggsy said “Oh,” in loud dismay and caught her arm with one hand; she whirled back around, eyes flashing, and shoved at him. Eggsy timed it well, his free hand swiping through her coat pocket while her attention was on the other side, lifting her phone and tucking it smoothly up his sleeve in the time it took her to shove him away. 

“Get your hands off me,” she hissed, and Eggsy backed up quickly, the glasses feed swinging around; a couple of security guards were beginning to take interest. 

“So uptight!” Eggsy said, with a huffed out little laugh. “Sorry, I’m sure!”

“ _Testa di cazzo_.” Dickhead. Fair enough, really. 

Eggsy retreated further, and peeled off out of the shop. He moved rapidly down the busy main street, then ducked into an alleyway and pulled out the phone. A Kingsman data collection micro USB slotted into the charging socket, and the phone’s contacts, calendar and email unspooled across the feed in a satisfying flicker. 

It was an unorthodox approach. Not one Harry would have chosen himself, but not ineffective. On the one hand, Eggsy had unnecessarily compromised his identity, and burned at least one alias; on the other, irritation was a reasonable distraction technique, and Eggsy had managed to be very irritating indeed. Boorish City boy abroad with an overblown sense of entitlement - certainly believable. And he’d got the job done—presuming that was the job, of course. 

Harry drummed his fingers on the sheet, wondering what Gareth’s opinion had been. Impressed? Critical? Was he giving Eggsy the proper feedback to develop him as an active agent?

Fuck it. Harry tapped out a message to send to Eggsy’s glasses: _Well executed, very neat, but was it really necessary to reveal your face? We should debrief properly on your return. HH_

The tablet flashed up with an error message when he pressed send. 

Blocked. 

Harry frowned, then tried to call him from his own glasses; blocked there as well. 

He patched through to Merlin with no difficulty. “You’ve locked me out of his comms channel?”

“Yes,” Merlin said, voice tinny over the transatlantic connection. “I need his head in the game.”

“And my speaking to him would—”

“—Ruin his concentration and jeopardise the mission, yes,” Merlin interrupted. “I’m glad you see it my way.”

Harry scowled. This was preposterous. “What if I need to speak to him?” he demanded. “For the mission?”

“You don’t need to,” Merlin said. “ _Gareth_ is running Lamorak, end of story.”

“Gareth doesn’t know Eggsy,” Harry said. Gareth was a thirty-eight year old Brixton-born ex-military pilot with several tours of Afghanistan under his belt. “He won’t be able to control him.”

“Gareth knows him fine,” Merlin said, with more force than Harry was expecting. “ _Back off_ , Galahad. I’m not joking.”

Harry snatched his glasses off, ending the connection, then pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a headache brewing across his forehead, a dull throb of tension, and he felt suddenly exhausted. He was in hospital for a reason, he supposed. He just wanted to _speak_ to him. 

On screen, Eggsy had found a cafe by a very peaceful-looking canal and was sitting feeding JB little bits of torn up pastry. Downtime? Waiting for someone? Lost? 

Harry glared for a moment at the sunlit dog snuffling happily in the palm of Eggsy’s hand, then put his glasses back on. “Lancelot, when are you aiming to start?”

“After sundown - four hours, ten minutes.”

“Fine,” Harry said. “Will Lamorak be coordinating with you?”

“Yes.”

“Any concerns?”

“Not presently.”

“Good,” Harry said. “I’ll be in touch - first, I have a little more reading to do.”

***

He started with the summarising report for South Glade Mission Church, and waded on, piecing together the mosaic of atrocities that was V-day, with Valentine and Gazelle and Eggsy and Merlin at its centre. It could have been even worse, he found himself thinking. Obviously it also could have been a lot better. Eggsy had done well, though. Proved himself. Made Harry proud.

And made a new friend, apparently. A liaison with a princess: not too shabby for a newly minted Kingsman. Harry ignored the irrational anger he felt at the thought of Eggsy celebrating with naked Swedish royalty whilst he languished on ITU. 

_We need him out there, not pining away at your bedside._

Hm. Well, quite. Harry swiped off the V-day report, then isolated all documents featuring _Lamorak_ instead. There were twelve mission debriefs - an impressive number for a knight who’d been recruited for less time than Harry had been unconscious. And… no, Harry thought, reading on. Eggsy had certainly not been pining. 

Harry had never been one to begrudge anyone the splendour of finishing a mission and then spending a few days holed up in a nice hotel, or on a nice island, or even just aboard a nice jet, fucking every which way with an affable companion or two—but he did have a strong preference for it to be _post_ -mission. Eggsy, apparently, did not. 

He skimmed the reports - and they were mostly good, they were, Eggsy had clearly been working extremely hard - and then Merlin’s name jumped out at him, and he brought the whole thing up. Merlin would tell it like it was.

>   
> **Prague** : Operation Red Sturgeon  
>  **Objective** : destabilise imminent coup threatening Czech Republic government  
>  **Debrief content** : Martial and soft social skills remain excellent. Reasonable data interpretation. Adequate diplomacy with one notable exception.  
>  **To improve** : 1. Resist distractions 2. Obey orders promptly  
>  **Recommendations** : 1. Gareth to take over as handler  
> 

  


Harry reread the report twice, unease growing at the base of his stomach, then patched through to Merlin. “Do you have a minute?” 

“I’m on the plane,” Merlin said. “Coming up over northern France. What’s wrong?”

“What happened in Prague?”

“Prague?” Merlin said. “It’s a city with a long, illustrious and complex history - you’ll have to be more specific.”

“ _More specifically_ , the Prague mission,” Harry said, uncomfortably aware that Merlin was buying time. “Three weeks ago.”

“Right. Largely a success. Lamorak got in the way of some big men with guns and prevented a lot of bloodshed and civil unrest.”

So far, so good. Harry tapped his thumbnail against his lower lip. “And that was when you assigned him to Gareth - why?”

Merlin sighed. “Lamorak also found time to get his end away with the sister of one of the big men with guns,” he said. “In the Session room of the Chamber of Deputies. Twice.“

Harry bit down hard on the tip of his thumb, focusing on that small pain rather than the flash of furious heat that thought inspired. “Twice seems excessive,” he said, when he was certain his voice was fine. 

“It was.” 

“I trust you had words with him afterwards.”

“I did.”

Harry kept his voice oh, so casual. “And has he become better at… resisting distractions, since then?”

“Harry,” Merlin said, and Harry winced at the tired exasperation in his voice, “you can see for yourself.”

He decided not to do any more reading.

***

A shower, then. Freshen up.

Seeing himself in the mirror for the first time, Harry supposed he could understand why Merlin hadn’t wanted him released just yet. The lower hemisphere of his left eye was an alarming bright red, like fresh blood, and there was a tracery of angry pink lines spidering down from his left temple, nubby healing tissue under his fingertips. No open wounds, though. No stitches that he could see. Whoever had been in charge of his face had done an excellent job, all things considered. 

He undressed carefully, appraising himself in the mirror: his arms were peppered with bruises of various ages, weeks of phlebotomy taking their tole; he’d lost some fat and some muscle tone, but not as much as last time; there was an ugly green bruise at the crease of his left thigh, streaking down his leg for a couple of inches - the site of femoral line, was his best guess.

Apparently he’d been quite unwell. 

The shower was exactly what he needed. He turned slowly under the hot water, letting it pound the back of his neck and run through his hair. He made the best use of the hospital supplies that he could - the soap was on the acrid side but made him feel industrially clean, and a disposable razor was better than nothing. 

He tried not to think about last time, the hot shave Eggsy had given him, his hands confident and capable in the very best way; that felt like a lifetime ago. 

Gradually his reflection became a little more familiar. He patted on aftershave and pulled on a fresh pair of pyjamas - better. More like someone convalescing than an actual patient, especially if you ignored the eye. 

He went back to bed and found the nurse delivering lunch to his wheeled bedside table; his stomach gave a little pang of hunger in response, which he found obscurely comforting. The nurse had also made his bed in his absence, and was holding out a small paper cup of pills. 

Harry inspected them warily. “Will these cause drowsiness?”

She gave him a patient smile. “Well, sir, any pill can—”

“I’d rather not, then,” Harry said. 

“—But you’ll feel much worse if your brain swelling comes back,” she finished, proffering the cup again. 

“Ah.” Brain swelling. They hadn’t mentioned that before, he was sure of it. “Well. All right, then.”

He swallowed the tablets with a grimace, then climbed back into bed and had to admit - in the privacy of his hopefully non-swollen brain - that it felt pretty wonderful to be lying down again. 

Damn it. He hated it when Merlin was right.

He reviewed the latest images from Lancelot in his glasses - nothing new - then turned his attention to the food. Maybe it _was_ a good idea to take it gently, the next couple of days. One thing at a time. 

So: a bite to eat, then a power nap, and then showtime.

***

He slept for three hours, and woke up feeling much more himself. Still aching, but less weary; there was a burgeoning feeling of energy inside him, something flickering back into life.

“Engaging—now,” Lancelot said - and it was beginning to feel right for her, now, _Lancelot_ , the name fitting like a calfskin glove - as she strode through the dark streets of the warehouse district behind the Arsonale di Venezia. 

She broke into the old Italian warehouse compound and laid low fifteen henchmen in as many minutes. Harry sat up, impressed.

“Good,” he said to her. “Very well done.”

“Thank you,” Lancelot said, sounding barely out of breath. 

Harry put Eggsy’s feed back on the wall in case he was up to something similar, but he seemed to be moving through crowds of tourists with no particular purpose. 

Lancelot made her way deeper into the compound, following their meticulously planned route without prompting; she must have memorised the entire set of blueprints. _Very good_ , Harry thought, again. 

Lancelot emerged into a darkened cellar with something akin to a meth lab set up along one wall, all scientific glassware and small sealed pots of grey-green liquid. 

“Permission to sabotage,” she murmured, as per protocol. 

“Permission granted,” Harry said, and watched with satisfaction as she threw a small gas canister and then a lighted match into the cellar and sprinted away, arms in a shield above her head even before the fireball rolled out vast and bright behind her.

Eggsy, meanwhile, was strolling into the exquisite formality of Caffè Florian on the Piazza San Marco, taking a table on his own in one corner and watching a very pretty waitress track him with her eyes.

“The blast may have attracted some attention,” Harry said, as Lancelot escaped the warehouse and ducked into an alleyway behind the Rio de l’Arsenal. 

“Agreed,” Lancelot said, and then laughed as she rounded a corner and ran straight into another cavalcade of henchmen. “Apparently!”

Harry barely had to say a word as she fought her way through them, all swift kicks and deft twists, flawless and lethal. “Good,” he said. “Okay, nine o’clock - he’s coming round.”

“Not any more,” Lancelot said, one foot darting left and connecting under the henchman’s jaw, snapping his head sideways.

Harry nodded. Exactly what he would have done.

Eggsy, meanwhile, ordered a double espresso and said something to the waitress that made her blush.

And on it went: Lancelot, stealing a speedboat and gunning it down the Grand Canal, nimbly evading gondolas and passenger ferries, then cutting the engine by the enormous gothic bulk of the Doge’s Palace and gliding silently under tourist-strewn bridges up the Rio di Palazzo in the dark. Eggsy, leaning against a wall now, chatting up the waitress, pickpocketing a bunch of keys but not slipping away. No, not going anywhere; idling closer, if anything; touching her cheek with one finger. 

Harry looked away, wishing he could hear whatever Gareth was saying. Maybe he was being given instructions to seduce, distract, occupy. Maybe even now Gareth was saying, inexplicably, _Very good, Lamorak, now laugh at her joke and compliment her smile_ , and that was why Eggsy wasn’t getting on with the fucking mission already. 

Lancelot found the bridge she’d been looking for and tied up the boat, then dropped down to the black shining water level; as promised, there was a crooked wooden door for unloading workboats that gave in easily to a skeleton key and a sharp shove. By their architectural scans, this was the underground canal that ran right to the heart of things. Lancelot slipped onto the narrow walkway inside, pulling the door closed behind her and forcing the lock shut again. She made her way forwards in pitch blackness for a while; Harry watched the dark feed with a faint sense of foreboding. His fingers twitched—he wanted to be there. He shouldn’t be puppeteering for anyone; he should be out in the mess of it, working side-by-side. 

Movement on Eggsy’s screen caught his attention; the view wavered up from the waitress’s face to point haphazardly at the ceiling, instead. The glasses must be pushed up on his head, Harry realised, bringing up the sound and then regretting it instantly as wet noises of approval filled the air. Eggsy was kissing her. 

Harry looked away sharply, killing the sound again. That was—not good. Leaving aside Harry’s feelings about Eggsy kissing _anyone_ else, the fact remained that Eggsy should be downstairs by now. Lancelot was running a few minutes late, picking her way slowly through the unlit disused canal track, but at this rate she was still going to reach the rendezvous point first. No, this was not good at all. 

Lancelot switched on her torch at last, her feed showing dank slippery stones, dark water slopping against the glinting straight lines of underground canal, and in front of her, another thick wooden door. She tried the handle a couple of times, then blew out a frustrated breath. 

Harry looked at Eggsy’s screen again in time to see the image pitch sideways again and skitter down the wall - the glasses knocked off his head, somehow. _Somehow_. The image stabilised on the ground, showing Eggsy’s Oxfords planted between the waitress’s tall black shoes; as Harry watched, one of her heels dragged up the back of Eggsy’s calf. Eggsy took a step forwards, pressing her into the wall. 

Lancelot tried the door again. “C’mon, Eggsy…” she muttered, and then, admonishing herself, “No, that’s not fair. Anything could have happened.” 

Harry realised his nails were digging into his palm, and consciously uncurled his fist. What the fuck was Gareth doing, anyway? If Harry had been in charge, he would have sent a warning jolt to the signet ring on Eggsy’s finger by now; he’d always found one crack of the electronic whip could do wonders for focusing the mind on the mission. If Harry had been in charge…

“I have a direct visual,” he said instead. “He’s… temporarily detained.”

“For a change,” Lancelot said, far too sarcastic for Harry’s liking. That spoke volumes. 

Luckily, Eggsy was stepping back and picking up his glasses, sliding them back on and returning the view to eye-level. Harry un-muted it, glaring at the screen. 

The waitress looked disgustingly well-kissed, slightly starry-eyed. “My break is over - I have to get back,” she said, all husky, pushing her tousled hair behind her ears. 

Eggsy’s voice was equally low. “I’ve got to get back to my dog, and all.” 

“I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, you will…” Eggsy touched her red mouth with one finger, and Harry bit the inside of his cheek against a sordid flare of jealousy. “What time do you finish?”

“Midnight.”

“Great - I’ll see you midnight.” 

The view from Eggsy’s glasses lingered on her as she walked away, heels clicking, hips swaying. Then Eggsy sighed and spun around, found the doorway he’d been supposed to be looking for several minutes ago, and hurried silently down a narrow set of stairs. Another corridor led to another, older-looking door, and then down a wider set of stone steps into a large dim wine cellar. 

The size and set of the stones matched the ones Lancelot was crouched on, out in the disused canal; sure enough, one of Eggsy’s stolen bunch of keys fit a rusty lock.

The door between the two glasses’ viewpoints swung open. 

For all he was appalled by Eggsy’s lack of professionalism, and still stinging from the sight of the waitress’s well-kissed face, Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lancelot’s feed.

He had always suspected Eggsy would cut a fine figure in a suit, but he hadn’t _seen it_. He’d commissioned the damn thing, sent him for a fitting, and then promptly been shot in the face. But oh, now, here was solid golden proof that Harry Hart should always trust his instincts. A devastating combination of charcoal chalk-stripe and elegant lapels, a perfect Full Windsor sitting snug at his crisp white collar. The glasses suited him as well, the little git - gave him something to peer over, or play with, adding a hint of librarian sexiness to an already unfairly attractive face. 

Lancelot did not seem impressed. “What the fuck were you playing at?” she asked, quietly, as she slipped into the cellar besides him. “I was worried so I checked into your feed - only to discover you literally stood me up.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Eggsy said easily, and Harry tensed as Eggsy looked beseechingly into Lancelot’s glasses. “Just trying not to rouse any suspicion, yeah? I reckon that ten minutes bought us an extra half hour down below.”

“Oh,” Lancelot said dryly. “So generous of you to sacrifice yourself like that.”

Eggsy winked at her. “Yeah, it was torture.”

Harry’s lip curled. Instead of thinking about that, he ran a search on Caffe Florian upstairs; from the heat tracers Eggsy had helpfully set up during one of his flirtatious laps of the building, Harry could see there were seventy persons in the restaurant and fourteen persons elsewhere. None, yet, were anywhere near the door Eggsy had used. The latest the bunch of keys would be missed was closing time - but that was the absolute latest. Ideally Eggsy would get them unobtrusively back into the waitress’s pocket before then. 

Harry found he didn’t want to think about that, either. 

He watched, instead, as they moved together through the wine cellar, executing a reasonably thorough silent search through dusty bottles and casks - until one brick caught Lancelot’s attention, slightly shinier than the others. She pressed it, and the noise of grinding stones filled the air. 

“Jackpot,” Eggsy said, and Lancelot looked at him in time for Harry to grudgingly appreciate Eggsy unholstering his gun with an understated flourish. 

“I’ll cover you,” Lancelot said, training her pistol on the stairs leading back up to the restaurant. 

“Nil incoming,” Harry put in, checking the heat sensors again. 

“Roger that,” Eggsy said to Lancelot, with a smart little wink. And this, really, was where he came into his own: he stalked down the unearthed steps into whatever lay beneath without a moment’s hesitation, gun gripped with both hands, steady as a rock. 

_Pity he didn’t have this unquestioning obedience when it came to shooting the damn dog_ , Harry thought, before he could help himself; and that was like cracking open whole a box of snakes in his brain. The memories all surged him at once: the incredulity and disappointment when Arthur met him straight afterward, shaking his head; the anger following hot on its heels; his dawning realisation that he had been not only complacent about the challenge but also complicit in Eggsy’s lack of discipline; the recognition that his amused tolerance of Eggsy bending the rules had failed to foster a code of behaviour appropriate for a Kingsman candidate. Eggsy had failed, but so had he. _I’ll sort out this mess when I get back._

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, realised his headache had returned. 

“Clear,” Eggsy called softly. 

Harry opened his eyes again to see Lancelot falling in behind him, her gun also raised. The steps led straight down to a large metal safe, warship grey with large panels of rivets. When Eggsy produced a key that fit this lock as well, Harry was forced to concede that maybe the sordid business with the waitress hadn’t been quite so pointless after all. 

The safe door swung open to reveal four plastic crates stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves, holding what looked like snub green missiles, each a foot long and gently glowing. 

“Shit,” Lancelot said. “Our calculations said _two_.”

“Two crates?” 

“Two devices,” Lancelot said. “One for Ilsigliente’s home and one for his car, we thought. This lot could take out most of Venice.”

“Aw, mate,” Eggsy said, shaking his head. “Look at this crap! We gotta blow this joint sky high.”

“We can’t _blow this joint_ ,” Lancelot said sharply. “It’s under the Piazza St Marco. It was built in the 1700s!” 

“Yeah, and now it’s stuffed to the gills with liver-poisoning coma bombs! Come _on_.”

“All the more reason not to lay down explosives,” Lancelot said, a trifle smugly. “You can’t fight airborne particles once they’re up there.”

“Ugh,” Eggsy said. “Give me a good honest fistfight any day.”

“When did _you_ last fight good and honest?” Lancelot said, shouldering past him to reach up for the top crate. “Come on. We’ve got to get them to the speedboat.”

“Speedboat?” Eggsy said, with renewed interest. “Rox! That is sick.”

“Not as sick as nine thousand people are going to be if we don’t get a move on,” Lancelot said, and Harry, who’d been running some rapid mental calculations of his own, cleared his throat. 

“Might want to be extremely careful jostling those crates,” Harry said, frowning at the schematic on his screen. “They’re fitted with bursting charges - any sudden moves, they’ll be liable to detonate. Look for a flashing light in the base of each unit, you’ll have about a five second grace period.”

“Thanks, will do,” Lancelot said, taking the stairs a little more slowly. “To start with, let’s just get them into the underground canal,” she said, over her shoulder to Eggsy, and then twisted fully back around. “ _No_ , Lamorak,” she said, in a tone that Harry found hauntingly familiar.

Her feed showed Eggsy hefting a crate in each hand, wearing that age-old expression of crestfallen belligerence that made Harry ache wistfully and grit his teeth at the same time. 

Eggsy blew out a sulky breath, then gently returned one of his crates to its shelf. “Fine, but it’s gonna take twice as long.”

“Doesn’t matter, you bought us all that extra time, remember?” Lancelot said sweetly, picking her way back up the steps with care. 

Harry did not wish to remember. “Tell him about the warning light,” he found himself saying, wishing that Lancelot would look back at Eggsy again. The tension - being able to see Eggsy’s feed but not his face, no way to anticipate his actions - was turning his stomach. 

“Lamorak,” Lancelot said, without looking around, “I don’t know if Gareth’s told you, but my guy just mentioned there’s a warning light on the units that might go off. If it does, we’ve got max five seconds before the air turns toxic. And don’t you dare make a fart joke,” she added, a laughing threat, and Harry heard Eggsy groan in the background.

“Ah c’mon, Rox, you’re killing me here.”

Harry hadn’t missed it: _My guy_. So Roxy didn’t want Eggsy to know either.

He wasn’t quite sure why it irritated him so much. Surely Eggsy was capable of keeping his attention on a box of delicate explosives regardless of Harry’s state of health. If he wasn’t, they had bigger problems on their hands. 

Harry scanned the building again while they made their two trips each. _Acceptable levels of activity_ , he thought, then zoomed in on a heat signature which appeared to be poking around near the door Eggsy had come through. Suspicion roused? Or just—no, okay, another heat signature was now guiding the first one further along the corridor into the region of the customer bathrooms. Just a tourist unable to read signs. 

Back in the disused canal, Lancelot was saying, “Okay,” as they lined up the crates on the narrow stone walkway. “That’s okay - careful - if there isn’t room, just put it on top of the others, _careful_ —shit.”

A warning light started flashing. “ _Get out of there_ ,” Harry barked, and Lancelot grabbed Eggsy by the waist and bodily propelled him back through the tiny door. 

“What the fuck—“ Eggsy started, but Lancelot just muttered, 

“This is _not_ basic scare tactics,” and that shut him up; he scrambled backwards into the wine cellar and pulled her in behind him, kicking the door shut and then throwing himself against it. 

A dull _whumph_ sounded, and the edges of the door flashed a lurid bright green; and then another, and another, like a muffled drumroll building up to speed. 

“Eggsy, _shit_ ,” Lancelot hissed, launching forward and throwing her arm around his face, muzzling his mouth and nose with her sleeve and digging her own face into his shoulder. With both sets of glasses obscured, Harry had only the audio - _whumph_ , _whumph_ \- which seemed to go on for a long time. 

Eventually, all was quiet. 

“Lancelot,” Harry said, not bothering to keep the urgency out of his voice. “Report.” 

If the gas had reached them, they would be asleep by now. A knot formed in Harry’s stomach, tightening with every passing second. 

“I’m okay,” Lancelot said, drawing slowly back from where she was hunched against Eggsy’s shoulder, the glasses’ feed refocusing on dark chalk-striped fabric. “Lamorak?” 

No answer. 

“Lamorak,” she repeated, and then, pulling him down to the ground and studying him, “ _Lamorak_.” 

Harry stared at the video feed of Eggsy’s lax face, his eyelids lolling closed behind his glasses, mouth slack; in the other feed, he could see Lancelot’s face drawn taut with concern. The knotted sensation was rising in his chest, burning. 

“ _Eggsy_ ,” Lancelot hissed, shaking him a little. 

There was a long pause, and then a cartoonish snore filled the air. 

“You _cunt_ ,” Lancelot said, and punched his arm. 

“Juuuuuust messing with ya,” Eggsy drawled, opening his eyes, peering at her with a delighted grin.

The effect on Harry was—difficult to qualify. “You could always open the door again and shove him in the canal,” he said conversationally, to Lancelot, and she gave a grim laugh as she stood up. 

“Believe me, I’m tempted.”

Eggsy gave her a quizzical look from the floor.

“My handler,” Lancelot said, sweet revenge in her voice, “appreciated your little practical joke about as much as I did.”

“Ooh, I’m scared, is it still Chris?” Eggsy crooned, picking himself up off the floor and dusting himself down.

“No,” Lancelot said. “No, it’s not.”

The quizzical look returned for a moment, then Eggsy clearly decided he didn’t care. “Alright, let’s get out of here.” 

In Eggsy’s feed, Lancelot raised her eyebrows. “Just like that?”

“Disable _or sabotage_ , that was the brief,” Eggsy said, stabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the door to the canal. “Reckon that lot’s pretty fucking sabotaged, innit?”

“So you just want to walk out the front door?”

“Back door’s out of action, babe,” he said, with a little leer. 

“We can’t just _leave_ this mess—“

“He’s right,” Harry interjected. “We’ve got clean-up crews for this sort of thing.” He really hoped that was still true. “If the two of you can slip out unnoticed at street level, that would be best.”

“But the keys,” Lancelot started.

“Leave the keys to me,” Eggsy said, and winked. “Are we going or what?”

“Fine,” Lancelot said, in a tone of voice that suggested it was not, in fact, fine. She raised one eyebrow at Eggsy. “You’re very eager to get moving.”

“Nearly closing time, innit,” Eggsy said, and buffed his fingernails against his lapel. “Believe I’ve got a date.”

“Don’t you want to get back to London?” Her tone was extremely casual. Harry leaned forwards, skin prickling. 

Eggsy didn’t appear to pick up any cues whatsoever. “Er, _you_ might wanna,” he said, grinning, “don’t let me stop you, but _I_ wanna get balls-deep in Italian c—“

“I’m surprised, is all,” Lancelot interrupted, arch. “I would have thought Harry waking up would be a bit more exciting to you than some waitress.”

Eggsy froze. “ _What_.” 

In that moment, Harry almost forgave him everything. Eggsy’s face was an open book: shining hope, disbelief, delight. 

“He’s awake?”

“Yes. In fact he’s back at work,” Lancelot said, and Eggsy actually checked over his shoulder, as if Harry might be about to appear behind them in the wine cellar. Lancelot laughed, genuine now; apparently she _had_ forgiven. “Not here, idiot,” she said fondly. “He’s been running point for me.” 

Eggsy’s open expression faltered. “For _you_?” he said, his voice gaining a combative edge, and then, before Lancelot could reply, “Sorry Rox, right, but that’s well off - if he’s on anyone, he should be on me.”

Despite himself, Harry felt a flare of satisfaction that Eggsy’s conviction matched his own. 

Lancelot shrugged. “It’s not up to me. Anyway, you’ve got Gareth.”

“Fuck Gareth,” Eggsy said emphatically. Then he winced behind his glasses and muttered, “Soz, Gareth,” and Harry bit back a smile because that, in a nutshell, was Eggsy’s problem: he didn’t think first.

“Moving on,” Lancelot said, smirking. “I take it we’re both going back to London now?”

“Fuck yes,” Eggsy said, and then gave her a grin that bordered on the predatory. “Wait though—Harry’s your handler. So he’s watching all this, yeah?” It wasn’t pitched as a question. 

“Yes, I—I should think,” Lancelot said, her voice betraying the slightest hesitation when Eggsy _sauntered_ towards her, steadied her with a hand on each shoulder, and looked deep into her glasses - his focus zeroing in on the glass itself, not her eyes. 

“Welcome back, mate,” he said, his voice matching his hot, heavy gaze. “I will see you very, _very_ soon.”

It was like the circulation returned to Harry’s whole body at once: heat and energy flaring back into existence, making him aware of all of himself for the first time that day: the way his feet were stretched, the way his thighs were splayed, the fattening line of his cock under the sheets, the curled tension in his fists, the air sucking in and out of his lungs. That _voice_ —it was wrong that any voice could have such a significant effect on him, let alone feel like the sole harbinger of warmth in this whole damn building, and yet. It made Harry want to jump out of bed, to pace, to kick in doors, as well as a lot of other things that were equally medically inadvisable right now.

Fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who want a visual for Gareth: **[this is Gareth](http://ukcalico.tumblr.com/post/122195289358/gareth-from-emergence-by-calico-habernero)**.

By the time Eggsy arrived, just after two in the morning, under the sceptical eye of Harry’s nurse - who may have been told that normal visiting hours didn’t apply, but certainly didn’t have to approve - Harry had prepared by making sure he was dressed and sitting out. Not the battle-tweed of a Kingsman, but the light armour of a gentleman at leisure: linen, corduroy, cashmere. 

He stood up when Eggsy entered the room, as if it weren’t only the fourth time he’d got out of bed all day. 

“Mate,” Eggsy declared, within seconds of bounding into the room and giving him a crushing hug so fleeting Harry didn’t have time to gather his stoicism and pull away, “your eye looks _mental_.”

“Yes, well,” Harry said, with a diffident shrug, as if his whole body weren’t thrumming with the nearness of him. “Shot in the face.”

Eggsy pulled back and studied him. “But like, they’ve patched you up real good,” he said, lifting one fingertip and tracing the skin next to Harry’s eye. “You had them bandages on so long I reckoned you’d need an eyepatch or something. Like, a pirate.”

Harry tried not to react to the light touch over sensitive skin. “You didn’t believe the poor prognosis line, then.”

“Harry,” Eggsy admonished. “Come on. There is _way_ too much unfinished business on this earth for you to bow out early.”

“The world needs every Kingsman it can get right now.”

“Sure,” Eggsy said. “That’s what I meant.”

Harry glanced away, feeling his good intentions shrivel like flowers in the noonday intensity of Eggsy’s proximity. “So,” he said. “Congratulations - Lamorak.”

Pleasure flashed through Eggsy’s eyes, and he pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yeah. And get this, right - he’s the one famous for defeating like a million enemies in one sitting. Pretty cool.”

Harry had a dreadful feeling he knew what was about to come next. “And you think this is very apt, I’m sure.”

“Totally,” Eggsy said. He grinned, trapping his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, eyes twinkling. “So do you know what _Galahad_ was famous for, then?”

Harry gave a small frown, as if he didn’t know exactly what. “Nobility, honour, quest for the grail, et cetera…”

“And…?”

“And what?”

“And,” Eggsy said triumphantly, tapping Harry in the centre of his chest for emphasis, “being a virgin, like, his _entire_ life.”

Harry squashed the urge to grab Eggsy’s finger and bite it. “Purity was a virtue highly valued by the Victorians.”

“A virgin, Harry. A fucking middle-aged horse-riding _virgin_.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Now, now. There’s a long history of monastic ideals being embodied by—”

“ _I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden’s hand in mine,_ ” Eggsy interrupted, and Harry broke off and stared at him, startled laughter warring with the desire to seize Eggsy by those elegant lapels and crush their mouths together. 

“Tennyson,” he said, instead. “ _Sir Galahad_. Haven’t you been doing your homework.”

Eggsy looked far too pleased with himself for Harry’s liking. “All I’m saying,” he said slowly, raising his eyebrows and looking Harry up and down. “Explains a _lot_.”

Heat raced under Harry’s skin. “Is that so?”

“That is so,” Eggsy mimicked, tilting his head, and then his eyes widened as Harry thought _fuck it_ and closed his hand on Eggsy’s shoulder, tugged him into his personal space and bent his mouth to Eggsy’s ear. 

“I can assure you,” Harry said quietly, “much as I admire the archetypal Galahad’s lofty ideals, chastity has never been _my_ strong suit.”

He was watching, and so he saw the colour bloom on Eggsy’s neck, disappearing under his neat white collar. He heard Eggsy’s next indrawn breath, longer and slower than before. He tilted his head, felt Eggsy’s hair brush his ear, then his jaw, caught the scent of him, a tempting brassy hint of salt and cologne—and then there was a sharp knock on the door and they jumped apart as the nurse walked in. 

She was bearing gifts in the shape of another little cup of pills and a fresh jug of water. 

She took in the scene with an unimpressed glance. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, no hint of apology in her voice. “But you’re on four-hourly obs.”

“That’s fine,” Harry said, conscious of Eggsy watching with interest as Harry rolled up his sleeve and allowed the nurse to fix the blood pressure cuff around his bicep. 

“Heart rate’s high,” she said disapprovingly, when the machine had finished its humming and squeezing. 

_I daresay. Try his for comparison_. “Really?”

“Yes. Are you in pain?”

“No, no,” Harry said. “Might have stood up a bit suddenly, that’s all.”

The nurse tapped some information into a tablet. “Well, I’ll come back, repeat it in half an hour,” she said, and left again. 

Harry caught Eggsy’s irritated look out of the corner of his eye, and realised all at once: Eggsy wasn’t intending to leave any time soon. Eggsy had a _plan_ , one that might be interrupted by a repeat set of obs in half an hour. It was an arresting thought.

Harry walked over to his bedside table and poured himself a glass of water. Sure enough, Eggsy appeared at his shoulder in two seconds flat.

“They got you on the good drugs, then?” Eggsy asked, peering at the cup of pills. 

“The little brown ones are pretty good,” Harry admitted.

Eggsy stirred the cup with his finger. “Ooh, you got oxycodone,” he said, and elbowed Harry in the ribs. “You could get twenty quid for that down Putney high street.”

Harry snorted. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Careful,” Eggsy said, grinning at him. “Couple of them on an empty stomach and I could do what I liked with you, you’d have no idea.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Oh _really_?” he said, lurid images pouring into his head of Eggsy taking advantage, doing whatever he wanted; while helplessness itself didn’t particularly turn Harry on, the idea of Eggsy thinking about it, teasing him with it, was still pretty hot. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, his expression turning sly. “Shave your eyebrows, draw a ‘tache on you, dye your hair… all sorts.” 

The contrast with the utterly obscene things Harry was thinking about couldn’t be greater. He had a feeling he was being played - and well. 

Harry cleared his throat. “Hardly chivalrous behaviour.”

Eggsy gave an easy shrug, and somehow ended up a little closer. _Relentless_ , Harry thought. 

“Well,” Eggsy said, “I’ve still got a lot to learn about being a knight.” His gaze turned contemplative. “ _Lots_ you could teach me.”

There was an open invitation in his eyes: _lean in again_ , came the message, loud and clear. _Take what you want_. 

Harry swallowed; every reason _not_ to fuck him seemed unaccountably flimsy right now. “You want a post-graduate education.”

“If that’s what you’re calling it,” Eggsy said, and then bit his lip in mock concern. “Unless you reckon you’ve already taught me everything you know?”

“Believe me,” Harry said, attention drawn to Eggsy’s mouth but only for a moment, “we haven’t even scratched the surface.”

Eggsy tilted his head, lips crooked in a lazy half smile. “Great,” he said. “I missed our… training sessions, while you was out of it. The others tried, but no one else _gets_ me, y’know?”

“I’m sure they did their best,” Harry said, and really, if he didn’t change the subject, he was going to say or do something he might regret. ”Lancelot not with you?” 

"Went home with Gareth." 

Harry blinked. That was—out of left field. ”Really?” 

"Nah,” Eggsy said easily, with a slow grin. “But there's no law against it, is there?" Apparently Eggsy wasn’t going to _let_ him change the subject. 

Harry wet his dry lips, and Eggsy’s gaze zeroed in on his mouth. ”No. No law."

“Not now we’re both knights.” A micropause, in which Harry felt like the room was spinning away from him, going indistinct behind a haze of heat. “And have I got this right, Harry? Cos I seem to remember you saying knights were allowed to do whatever they wanted…” 

”Within reason."

"How's this for a reason," Eggsy started, and Harry could _feel_ what he was going to do—he was going to grab Harry’s hand and pull it against his crotch, and God help him but Harry was going to let him—and then a sharp rap on the door froze them both.

Harry stepped back in the millisecond before Merlin walked in.

"For fuck's sake," Merlin said, taking in the two of them with a single glance, and this was the point Eggsy would have taken off, before, made a garbled excuse and bolted, but now—Eggsy stayed put.

Arms folded, head cocked at Merlin as if to say, _What_?

It was really fucking inappropriate and _incredibly_ fucking hot.

“I do _not_ want to know what you think you’re doing here at two in the damned morning,” Merlin said to Eggsy, then glared at Harry. “You're supposed to be on strict bed rest for three days."

"I feel better," Harry said, even as Eggsy said seriously,

"Don't worry Merlin, leave it with me - I'll make sure he don't get out of bed ’til next week.”

Merlin rounded on him. “ _You're_ supposed to be debriefing with Gareth.”

Eggsy pulled a face. “As if I was gonna go there first. I already know what he's gonna say, anyway.”

“Do you really?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy insisted. “He's gonna say I should’ve kept to time, and I should’ve kept Rox informed every time I changed the plan, and I shouldn’t of engaged Dorriata directly in case she remembered my face - the crime boss,” he explained, to Harry.

“Yes, I know - I was watching.”

“Bet you were,” Eggsy murmured swiftly, and looked back at Merlin. “And I know he’s right, okay, I was just - improvising, in the heat of the moment,” he said, with a charming smile that worked about as well on Merlin as a slingshot on a rhino. “I’ll do better next time.”

“Heard that before, haven’t we,” Merlin said, and turned his glare back onto Harry. “I’m sure you won’t mind, Galahad, if Lamorak goes and debriefs properly now, will you?”

“Not at all,” Harry lied. “Most inappropriate not to.”

“Exactly,” Merlin said.

Eggsy stared back at Merlin for a moment, then made an exasperated noise. “Fine,” he said, and then gave Harry a look that promised dirty, detailed things. “I’ll see _you_ tomorrow.”

“Enjoy your debrief,” Harry said, and Eggsy made an elaborate wanking gesture before turning on his heel and striding out. 

Harry looked at Merlin. “And dare I hope there’s a good reason for _you_ to be here at two in the damned morning?”

“Don’t you start,” Merlin said, and made a shooing gesture with his hands. “C’mon, invalid, back to bed with you.”

Harry snorted and allowed himself to be ushered back to bed. “No, really,” he said, climbing in, “what are you doing here?”

“Just passing on my way back from the helipad,” Merlin said, then scratched his nose. “Well. That and they patch your obs through to my phone, and the last time they went off in the middle of the night you were having a seizure.”

Harry raised his eyebrows, caught between feeling aghast at Merlin’s unapologetic invasion of his privacy and frankly quite touched by said invasion. “Well, as you can see,” he said eventually, “I’m not.” 

“No. Just considering adding your notch to Lamorak’s bedpost,” Merlin said dryly. “Good luck finding a space on it.”

That flare of searing jealousy again. “I was doing no such thing,” Harry said, pulling the sheets primly up around his chest, and then he caught sight of Merlin’s dour expression again and had to bite back a smile. “Fuck off.”

“Yes, well, you could spare a thought for the rest of us before you do,” Merlin said, and Harry frowned at the tone that wasn’t _quite_ joking, but Merlin was already clapping him on the shoulder and moving on. “In any case, afraid I’m sending him to Moscow tomorrow, so you’ll have to wait a tad longer for the touching reunion.”

“Moscow.” Nearly two thousand miles away. Two hours ahead.

“For a few days. Just think,” Merlin said, “if you take your meds on time and don’t cause any excitement all week, they might let you home on good behaviour.”

 _Cold-hearted cock-blocking bastard_ , Harry thought, and smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

***

Whether it was the drugs or some subconscious desire to reassert himself as a living, hot-blooded thing, Harry dreamed of sweaty, anonymous fucking that night and woke up restless, craving; dick hard and hand already closing around it. It took him a moment to remember he was in hospital, where anyone could - and apparently, would - walk in on him at any time; that thought served as a bucket of iced water. He let go of himself, threw his head back against the paltry hospital pillows, and growled out a low noise of frustration. 

Surely twelve hours was enough bed rest for anyone.

His phone was on his bedside table, along with his breakfast cup of pills and a covered dish of actual breakfast. His nurse had been in and out whilst he slept, and he hadn’t even stirred. For a moment, he thought about texting Eggsy - _Get me out of here without anyone noticing and I’ll do whatever you want for the rest of the week_ \- but even as the fantasy formed he knew he wasn’t, actually, going to do any such thing. 

He may not have his dignity, his freedom or even his own socks right now, but willpower—that, he was still clinging onto, just about.

***

The objective in Moscow was to unobtrusively assassinate a man - Rovan Brinsk - who had been openly buying intercontinental ballistics and talking about nuking _a straight line from Belarus to France_ unless what was left of NATO bought him out.

“I’ve found ‘im,” Eggsy said, that first evening, on the phone. “Looks like a right twat.”

Harry smiled, resting his head back against his pillows. “And here I was expecting the homicidal madman to be a picture of sophistication.”

“He’s going to a posh party tomorrow. I am so there. My plan is, right, get him alone, just graze him with the shoe blade toxin, on like his little finger, then when he’s dead cut the finger off and, y’know, incinerate it or something.”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “You really love that toxin.”

“I dunno why anyone uses anything else,” Eggsy said.

“They’ll still be able to detect it at post-mortem, even if you destroy the puncture wound. Why not leave the finger intact and scatter a bit of arsenic around, throw them off the scent while you leave the country.”

“Arsenic?” Eggsy snorted. “Are you literally a hundred years old?”

Harry stretched pleasantly, and shifted a little further down into the bed. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

Eggsy must have heard something; his tone turned sly. “Are you in bed?”

“I’m in hospital,” Harry reminded him. “The options are essentially: bed versus chair.”

“Fair,” Eggsy said. “How’s your head?” 

“Better.”

“How’s your eye?”

“Much the same.”

“How’s your… shoulder?” Eggsy asked, and Harry could hear the grin coming through, now. 

“Are you going to quiz me on all my body parts?”

“Might do,” Eggsy said, his voice slowing down, and Harry shifted again, his libido stirring. So fucking attuned to Eggsy’s voice.

He cleared his throat. “Might take a long time.”

“Might be selective,” Eggsy said, and then, meaningful: “Or might cut to the chase.”

For a moment, Harry didn’t trust his own voice. “Mm?”

“How… is… your…” Eggsy started, leisurely spacing the words, making Harry wait for each one—and then he cut off, and there was a sound of a lot of glass breaking. “Fuck, Harry, gotta go,” Eggsy said quickly, and then, a moment later, as if from across the room, “hold that thought!”

Harry heard the muffled shouts and thumps of a fight breaking out, and then the phone line went dead. 

Harry looked down at himself, half-hard, a conspicuous bulge in his blue hospital bedsheets. He took a deep breath, then shook his head and reached for his glasses case. 

Clicking through the available options, he found Eggsy’s glasses were off - stowed away, lending a little more weight to the idea that Eggsy had planned the direction that phone call had been taking - and so he patched through to Gareth instead. “Eggsy’s compromised.”

“For a change,” Gareth said easily. Gareth had a treacly upper class voice at the best of times; now, sounding sleep-roughened, it was ludicrously deep. Harry felt a frisson of irritation that this was the voice giving Eggsy his orders on a daily basis. “By whom?”

Harry played the audio back in his mind. “Sounded like four or five assailants.”

“Ah, okay. Are you worried?”

“Not _worried_ ,” Harry said, and belatedly realised that Gareth must know, since Eggsy’s glasses were off, that they had been on the phone. The thought was obscurely embarrassing. “Just thought you should know.”

“He can handle himself, you know that,” Gareth said, and Harry was seeing double entendres where there weren’t any, he was sure of it. 

“Yes, I know.” Even worse.

“But I’ll—” Whatever Gareth had been going to say was cut off by the electronic click of Eggsy’s glasses coming online. “Ah, Lamorak,” Gareth boomed, cheerfully. “We were just talking about you. How’s your hotel?”

“Bit more full of unconscious knobs than it was,” Eggsy said, his video feed showing a nice old-fashioned hotel room somewhat ruined with broken glass and comatose assailants strewn liberally across various pieces of opulent furniture. “I swear it was that bird in the lobby, selling me out. Way too fit for concierge, even in Russia.”

“Lamorak has a theory that physical attractiveness correlates strongly with likelihood to betray,” Gareth told Harry, and Eggsy made a protesting noise.

A moment later, Harry’s phone buzzed. A text from Eggsy: _Not true - don’t reckon you’re gonna betray me any time soon._

Well, at least he hadn’t said it live on air. 

“Okay,” Gareth was saying. “I’m patching through the coordinates for your new hotel. Name of Mischa Evanoff, arriving for a six week business trip from Samara. Sending you the briefing document now - I’ll leave it up to you to get there unobserved.” 

“Sure thing,” Eggsy said, and signed out again. 

“Has that put your mind at rest?” Gareth asked dryly.

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. Gareth was just winding him up - it was ridiculous to bristle at a little light teasing. “Yes, thank you,” he said, politely. “Goodbye.”

He took a shower, partly to clear his head and partly because it was the one room he had access to right now with a working lock. 

The shower was square with glass walls, which misted up fast. Harry stood under the pounding water and breathed in the steam… and let his thoughts race back to where they wanted to be. Eggsy’s voice in his ear, slow and suggestive. He played back the beginning of that conversation in his mind—and there had been nothing _said_ , nothing explicit to grasp onto, and yet the tenor in Eggsy’s voice had been unmistakable. Eggsy _wanted_ him, and by God did he mean to have him. A tipping point had been passed: Eggsy wasn’t concealing his attraction to Harry any longer. 

A small voice in the back of Harry’s head couldn’t help but point out that neither was Eggsy concealing his attraction to anyone else.

But why should either of them have to conceal anything? They were both adults, they were both knights, they were both—Harry reached down and closed his fingers around his cock, giving up all pretence that he was in here to wash—keenly anticipatory of something, _anything_ , happening. If Eggsy were here now, instead of in fucking Moscow, he would be _right_ here, Harry was sure of it. He’d be getting in the shower with him, clothes an uneven discarded trail from the door, pressed up against Harry with his arms around his neck, lean and slippery wet, hot, hard. 

Harry would be able to kiss him, taste him, run his fingers through Eggsy’s wet hair and down his soapy back, feel him arch and jostle closer in response; cramming them together against cool condensation-slick glass while hot water drummed endlessly down around them. It would be privacy and pornography in glorious unison: reaching around and coaxing Eggsy up onto his toes, fitting their dicks together, stroking them both as his other hand grasped Eggsy’s arse, keeping him angled in against Harry’s hips, nice and close, just right. 

The thought of Eggsy sliding restlessly in his arms, probably groaning, thrusting against Harry’s cock and panting against his neck—it made Harry’s hand speed up over his own cock, short rapid strokes with the sole intention of driving himself up, up, up. He _needed_ this, the release from what felt like weeks of unfulfilled promise, the scratchy feeling under his skin of wanting and being wanted and never - quite - getting to touch. He needed this and it was wonderful, vital; a pleasant immolating reminder that he was alive, thank you very much, and pretty fucking delighted about it. 

He wrapped both hands around his cock and squeezed as he stroked, one palm rubbing over the head just how he’d teach Eggsy he liked it. With his tongue. God, yes, to have that option for shutting Eggsy up, to just grab him by the hair and push his mouth down onto Harry’s cock—he could get used to that very, very fast. Not that he wanted to shut him up, most of the time - he loved Eggsy’s blunt wit and sly observations, of course he did - but every now and then, when Harry was watching utter nonsense fall out of those damp pink lips, the freedom to interrupt with a soft “ _That’s all very well, but now why don’t you let me fuck your mouth instead?_ ” would be extremely welcome. 

He pictured the first push with a low groan, those lips parting to take him, those eyes widening as Eggsy worked to accommodate him, wet and messy and so very keen. 

Eggsy would want to appear worldly, like he’d sucked a thousand cocks in his time - and maybe he had, Harry thought, with a flash of wry amusement - and the fact of the matter was that would make Harry want to test him, give it him harder, see how much he could take. He’d want to slide a hand into Eggsy’s hair and coax him to take it all, coax him to let Harry slide right in, filling his mouth and throat and then rocking there, feeling Eggsy swallow and struggle and - God, hopefully - _lean in for more_. 

Harry shuddered with the white-hot pleasure of that thought, and felt his body kick into its highest gear. He was dissolving into raw sensation, the heat of it billowing over his skin and lapping at his brain. He almost expected to hear a knock on the door, the wail of approaching sirens, a distracting explosion—but fuck it, right now he actually wouldn’t care. He tipped his head back against the glass, almost snarling as his hands pumped harder and harder, his breath coming quickly now, undercut with low involuntary sounds. He needed this, needed it as much as he needed Eggsy against a wall with his legs spread, looking back over his shoulder at Harry and saying, “ _Come on, yeah, do it, do me…_ ”

Harry groaned under his breath, dropping one hand to cup the tightening warmth of his balls, letting a fingertip play against the soft skin behind. He was so fucking close. If Eggsy were here now, he’d just have to kneel in front of Harry and open his mouth for his cock, that would be it—or kiss Harry’s neck, one hand sliding down his chest—or, who was he kidding, if Eggsy were here right now, all he’d have to do was fucking _smile_. 

Harry bit down on a low moan and came dizzyingly hard; jagged hot pulses that seemed to go on and on. And that was a new low, wasn’t it, a new extreme: climaxing to an image like _that_. He smirked at the thought that if Eggsy ever found out, he would never live it down, and then he just stood there, collapsed back against the glass with the water pouring down over him, catching his breath, and grinning.

His brain was spinning, the rest of his thoughts a blur; flung out by centrifugal force to a distance impossible to catch. There was just lassitude and warmth, and the joyous lighter-than-air absence of frustration. Fucking hell, but he had needed that. 

He rinsed off eventually and staggered out from the shower, finding a reasonable approximation of a fluffy towel and throwing it around himself before sinking down to sit on the bathroom floor. Just—resting for a minute, while his muscles remembered how to work; just evaporating off some of the steam. Sitting there, his brain slowed down enough that he could capture a few drifting past; mostly self-congratulatory ephemera and musings on all the roads to future sexual success. Most roads led to Eggsy; frankly most roads led to next week. 

Once Eggsy was back from Moscow and Harry was out of hospital… anything could happen. 

_Everything_ could happen.

At fucking last.


	4. Chapter 4

The party the mark would be at was white tie, which Harry hated, and had an impressive view St. Basil’s Cathedral, which Harry secretly loved. He watched through Eggsy’s glasses as Eggsy fiddled with his white bow tie in the mirror.

“It looks shit,” Eggsy said. 

Harry put his fingers to his own throat. “Start again. I think you made the long end too long - it should only be an inch and a half longer than the short end.”

“Whatever - it’s all fucking origami to me,” Eggsy said, but his expression in the mirror was expectant. 

The silk looked flimsy in Eggsy’s fingers as Harry guided him through the motions, then - in that way of all bow ties - coalesced at the last moment into a sleek knot with a gleaming pair of wings. 

“Better?”

“I still look like a twat,” Eggsy said, tipping his chin to the side, giving himself a critical once-over.

“That’s the dark secret behind white tie,” Harry said, seriously. “Everyone looks like a twat.”

Eggsy grinned at that, and Harry experienced the jolt of satisfaction that he always got when Eggsy laughed at the jokes Harry aimed only at him. 

Damn it. This was getting out of hand.

***

Gareth’s puppeteering style was largely hands-off with occasional smack-downs, Harry discovered, watching through Eggsy’s glasses as Eggsy navigated the party. Or to put it another way: he gave Eggsy enough rope to hang himself, and then every so often kicked the step out from under him.

So Eggsy circulated at his own pace, knocking back prestige vodka and curling his lip at caviar canapés, flirting left right and centre. He identified the mark - Brinsk - and kept well clear of him, at first. Then as the evening wore on, Brinsk never straying out of his tight knot of close associates, Eggsy gravitated towards the gaming tables a few feet away from him; winning the first few rounds of poker with Gareth’s timely instructions and then losing big - losing _massive_ \- when Gareth flatly refused to assist in the final hand. 

The thundering defeat - five million rubles - earned him the pitying smirks of the crowd who’d gathered around him during his winning streak, and the shark-eyed attention of a couple of heavies at a nearby table. Brinsk didn’t appear to notice. He certainly didn’t do anything useful like break away from his cronies and give Eggsy some light mockery or, failing that, a few pointers. 

“You need to care a lot more about this,” Gareth said, as Eggsy cheerfully accepted a replacement martini. “That’s fifty-eight thousand pounds.”

Eggsy glanced at his reflection in a nearby window and gave them a wink. “I got this,” he mouthed.

“That was supposed to be your cue to have a nervous breakdown and get escorted away from the table, piquing Brinsk’s interest,” Gareth said. 

Eggsy didn’t reply, which was good, because he wasn’t supposed to be arousing suspicion. What he did do, however, was raise his glass to the croupier and say warmly, in Russian, “Another?”

“ _No_ , Lamorak,” Gareth said. “Unwise.”

The croupier - who looked distractingly like Halle Berry in a black satin corset - lifted her eyebrows. “Deep pockets.”

“The deepest,” Eggsy promised, sliding back into his seat, keeping his eyes fixed on her.

“Lamorak, you’re breaking character,” Gareth said, and Harry felt a mean pang of satisfaction at the urgency creeping into Gareth’s voice. “Evanoff cannot afford this. Your backstory has precious little wiggle room.”

Eggsy continued chatting up the croupier, who responded with rather more enthusiasm than Harry would have liked, and then a message flashed across the glasses feed: a text from Eggsy’s phone, on his knee under the table.

_G, chill. Brinsk ain’t biting tonight. Let me win some back and I’ll bow out. Or do u want Evanoff to top himself now he bankrupt?_

“Little git,” Gareth said, with feeling, and Harry smothered a smile. “Fine. _One_ game.”

***

Ninety minutes later, and thankfully sans croupier, Eggsy was back in his new hotel room: an art deco monstrosity of purples and golds with a large gilt-framed floor-length mirror.

Harry, sitting out in his chair with a fresh cup of tea, glanced at the clock. Eleven PM here, making it one AM in Moscow. The way Eggsy had been going, he’d half expected him to stay out all night.

Eggsy locked the door, then walked straight to the mirror and stood before it, sliding off his jacket and draping it over a chair. Then the waistcoat. Then, very deliberately, watching himself in his glasses, he reached up and tugged open his bow tie.

“The debrief can wait until tomorrow,” Gareth announced, and cut his connection. 

Harry snorted—but didn’t stop watching. Maybe he was biased, but even despite the white tie Eggsy looked unutterably handsome this evening. Eggsy grinned at himself in the mirror - a lean, challenging grin that Harry felt on the back of his neck. 

“You there?” Eggsy said, and started plucking open the buttons of his white dress shirt, one by one. 

“I—yes,” Harry said, staring harder than he probably should at the triangle of skin being revealed in tantalising increments, and then, while he still could, added, “Is an open comms channel _quite_ the place for this?”

“For what?” Eggsy asked immediately, and Harry’s mouth worked for a moment, but no sound came out. 

_For you to take your clothes off at me_ , he thought, and there was no way he was saying that on an open channel either.

Eggsy tilted his chin. “For this?” he asked, undoing the last button and grasping an edge of his shirt in each hand. Staring unsmiling into the mirror, he slowly drew his hands apart, dragging his shirttails out of his waistband, revealing what seemed like acres of smooth golden skin. He shrugged the shirt off with a neat fluid gesture, let it fall to the floor, and then stood there topless, hands resting on his hips, his posture provocative, bordering on antagonistic.

Harry made himself laugh, even as his cock thickened against his thigh. “Well you seem fairly inebriated.”

Eggsy ran a hand idly down his chest, let it stop over his belt buckle. “I should be,” he said. “Drank enough vodka.”

Harry couldn’t bring himself to look away from the clenched muscle of Eggsy’s abdomen, the cut of his pecs, his tight dark nipples. “Then an open channel is not an appropriate place for you,” he managed. 

“No it bloody isn’t,” came Merlin’s voice, and the picture flashed out into electronic darkness.

Harry blinked as his hospital room came back into focus, then took off his glasses and clapped his hand over his eyes. Embarrassing didn’t cover it. He was behaving like a teenager - struck dumb by a simple flash of skin, finding it difficult to string three words together - and it really, really had to stop. 

Harry’s phone started buzzing on the table next to him, and a pulse of heat went through his cock; and that was just great, wasn’t it? He’d been _conditioned_. 

“Merlin’s loss,” Eggsy said, as soon as Harry picked up the phone.

Despite himself, Harry smirked. “I’m sure he’d disagree.”

“Bollocks to him,” Eggsy said, and then, before Harry could say anything about how actually Merlin was one hundred per cent in the right on this one, Eggsy drawled, “ _So_. Bed or chair?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said yesterday, bed or chair. And I need to be able to picture you. So I’m askin’… bed? Or chair?”

“Chair,” Harry said, and couldn’t help but wonder if Eggsy had made any progress with that belt buckle of his. 

“Wearing…?” 

Harry laughed again—a shorter, more choked laugh than before. “How much vodka did you drink, exactly?”

“A _lot_ ,” Eggsy said, with intoxicated over-pronunciation. “Shots. And martinis. Made me think of you. Wanna be there. What are you wearing?”

“My red dressing gown,” Harry found himself saying, and Eggsy made an approving noise. 

“Nice. What’s under it?”

This conversation was actually happening. Whether Eggsy would have any memory of it in the morning was another matter. “Eggsy,” Harry said, trying for reproving but falling somewhat short of the mark. 

“What?”

“You’re drunk. This isn’t a good idea.”

“Why not let me be the judge of that?” Eggsy said, and his breathing was picking up, suggesting to Harry that the belt was probably history. And the rest.

“Because your judgement is patently impaired.” Because if they were acknowledging it this time, Harry wanted to be sure Eggsy would remember every damn second.

“My judgement is the same as ever,” Eggsy said, and the airy note in his voice was like a feather running down the back of Harry’s neck. “C’mon, Harry, enough pissing about, just _talk_ to me already.”

Harry had never before heard the word _talk_ sound so obscene. He shifted in his seat, pulling his dressing gown tight over the steadily growing bulge of his cock. “I don’t think that’s a good idea either.”

“None of my best ideas are good ideas,” Eggsy said, which barely even made sense, or maybe Harry’s comprehension was starting to let him down as his focus tightened on the shiver in Eggsy’s voice, the catches of breath between effortful syllables. “Fine, I’ll talk then - believe me, I’ve got a lot to say.”

“Eggsy,” Harry said, trying to gloss over the fact that now he could hear Eggsy _panting_ , “look—”

“If you don’t wanna listen, you can always hang up,” Eggsy said, and then, when Harry didn’t, he gave a breathless little laugh. “I—ah, fuck—didn’t fink so.”

Harry’s free hand was resting on his thigh; the temptation to close his hand on his dick, match Eggsy stroke for stroke, was almost unbearable. 

“I reckon you wanna listen,” Eggsy said, “but not as much as you wanna watch. Me. Right. Now. _Ah_ —”

Twin flashes of lust and disappointment went through him at the thought that Eggsy might have just come, and then the noises continued, and Harry was forced to consider that in all likelihood Eggsy had only changed position or done something else that felt particularly good just then. Images of what that _something_ might be crowded his head - Eggsy licking his hand, rubbing the crown of his cock, sliding a finger into his arse - and Harry bit the inside of his cheek, pulse racing. 

“And then there’s what I want,” Eggsy said, his voice tinny and distant now, and had he put Harry on fucking hands-free? “If you’re in that chair - you know what I want?”

Harry was gripping the phone so hard his fingers started to tingle. 

Eggsy’s voice came in a low, heated rush: “I wanna strip you naked and sit on your dick, Harry. Ride you ’til you can’t remember your own name. You remember I was a gymnast? _Well_. Yeah.”

Harry was stuck on _ride you ’til you can’t remember your own name_. “I—okay, that’s enough—” he said, despite the fact that his cock was now tenting the red silk, hard as hell at the thought of Eggsy here, in his lap, pulling open the dressing gown and straddling him, lowering himself onto it as Harry watched.

Eggsy made a dismissive noise. “As per fucking usual,” he said, amidst broken breaths. “You’re—killing me here, you don’t even know it.”

“Er,” Harry said, and with great effort moved his hand away from his cock, “right, no, I appreciate that. It’s very frustrating.”

“It is _very_ frustrating,” Eggsy agreed, almost growling down the phone at him. “I have had a hard-on since fucking _April_.” 

“I’m going to hang up, now.” 

Eggsy’s voice went urgent, pleading: “No no no, don’t, Harry, not yet, just let me, just—“

“I’m hanging up.”

“ _Harry_ —”

Harry ended the call and then turned the phone off for good measure, finding his palms were damp and his hands were trembling. He put the phone down next to the cold cup of tea and took a couple of deep breaths. The devil on his shoulder was demanding why he couldn’t at least have let Eggsy finish, let him reveal to Harry all of his lovely, filthy thoughts, let him paint a picture that Harry could take with him the next time he was in a room that locked—but Eggsy was clearly completely drunk, and to take advantage of that - even more than he had done - was not how Harry wanted to start this thing. 

_This thing_. He realised he hadn’t let himself consider, before, what shape of thing it might be possible to have, with Eggsy. Apart from a _lot_ of fucking, working through every fantasy Harry had tortured himself with over the last three months and then drilling down into what, exactly, made Eggsy’s libido tick besides thoughts of riding Harry in a manner that made good use of his gymnastic training; apart from that, what else was on offer? And if that was all Eggsy was offering, was that going to be enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final part tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

“Fucking hell,” Eggsy groaned, when Gareth had the hotel give him a wake-up call at eight AM the next morning. 

Harry, awake for the set of six AM observations his nurse refused to reschedule, listened warily without turning on the video.

Eggsy’s voice was throaty, cracked. “I feel like a goat shat in my mouth.”

“Delightful,” Gareth said. “Not quite got the stomach for Soviet drinking after all?”

“Not got the stomach for eight in the fucking morning,” Eggsy muttered. “Jesus. What time did I stay out ’til?”

“I navigated you home at one o’clock,” Gareth said. “Incidents I talked you out of include: assassinating Brinsk in full view of his guests, diving fully dressed into the Petrovskiy Fountain, eloping with your croupier, and getting a tattoo of your dog on your chest. You’re welcome.”

“Fucking hell,” Eggsy said again, laughing. “I can’t remember past ten PM - literally fuck all.” 

Harry tensed; he’d expected as much, but it still wasn’t particularly pleasant to hear.

“Colour me astonished,” Gareth said. “Perhaps stick to sparkling water in future?”

“Mate, right now I never wanna touch the booze again,” Eggsy assured him. “I feel _nasty_.”

Gareth’s grin was audible. “Well, you have forty minutes before I need you to look, if not feel, in tip top condition. I recommend ablution and rehydration until then.”

Harry turned the glasses off and rolled over, finding a cool area of pillow to press his face into. His headache was back.

***

Apparently Harry’s inflammatory markers were very promising.

“His CRP is still a hundred and two, but it’s probably lag,” Dr Patel said to the consultant, on that morning’s ward round. “White cells have come down to sixteen - but he’s on dexamethasone so they might not get much lower than that.”

The consultant was a slender Japanese woman who looked to Harry more like a movie star than a neurologist - glossy black Cleopatra bob, red lipstick and spiked heels - and spoke in short rapid-fire bursts. “And are we weaning the dex?” 

One of the other doctors started scrolling hastily through an iPad, even as Dr Patel nodded. “He’s on day five of a reducing regime.”

“Good. Obs?” 

“All in normal range,” said Kim-Li, Harry’s nurse for today. 

“Good. Repeat EEG today, bloods tomorrow, TDS physio, review by Plastics, home Friday all being well. Next!” 

She swept out of the room, the rest of the team hurrying behind. 

Dr Patel gave Harry an apologetic smile. “Sorry, always a bit rushed,” she said. “Did you catch any of that?”

Harry sat up a bit straighter. “Home Friday?”

Dr Patel held up a cautioning hand. “ _Maybe_ ,” she said, her eyes serious. “If all the tests are reassuring - but there are no guarantees, I’m afraid I can’t promise you anything.”

“I won’t hold you to it,” Harry said, trying not to look like he was getting his hopes up even as excitement welled inside him. 

She paused, studying his face for a moment, then flashed him a quick smile. “You do _look_ better,” she said, as if telling him a secret. “Fingers crossed for Friday.”

***

Harry had heard bad things about the hospital physiotherapists: pitiless sadists who inflicted endless routines containing little apart from crushing boredom and relentless pain.

In the event, he was assigned Paula and Chelsea: Paula, a freckled white girl who had cropped brown hair, a couple of visible piercings and, Harry surmised after three minutes of observation, carried a huge fuck-off torch for Chelsea, a leggy Caribbean girl with long black plaits and eyelashes that put Bambi to shame.

They put him through his paces in the hospital gym: stretches, treadmill, floor work, weights. Gently at first, all bright encouragement and advice on form, and then with a bit more vigour. 

“Come on - ten more, show me what you’ve got,” Chelsea said, as Harry’s arms started to tremble, and he took a deep breath and pushed as hard as he could. “This is working trapezius, the climber’s muscle - you’ll sleep so well tonight, I promise.”

Harry gritted his teeth, feeling sweat slide down his face. 

“That’s great,” Paula said. “Amazing given five weeks’ inaction - you must have been really fit before your accident.”

“I was quite fit,” Harry admitted, and his brain flashed to Eggsy’s bare torso, last night, that sculpted chest and flat ridged stomach. Thoughts of running his hands over it, running his tongue over it, kissing him all over to find the places that made Eggsy shiver and arch— “I have an active job.”

“We’ll get you back out there soon enough,” Paula said.

Harry gave her a tight smile and managed another slow rep. _Bloody hope so._

***

Back in his room, he reviewed some of the morning’s footage from Eggsy.

Eggsy seemed to have spent a large part of the morning drinking multiple bottles of water and wearing sunglasses despite the overcast day. 

In lieu of getting Brinsk alone, Eggsy was staking out his house: a large art nouveau mansion in leafy Kropotkinskaya, standing in pride of place between the Moscow river and the golden-domed cathedral. Brinsk had the habits of a paranoid man, as well he might: blacked out Audi, an underground car park, and if that wasn’t bulletproof glass in all those ornate windows then someone somewhere was missing a trick. Not a single member of his staff was bribable, according to Gareth’s background checks, and the hiring process involved Kingsman levels of vetting.

“The shipment’s due in on Thursday night,” Gareth was saying. “So you’ve got forty-eight hours to either get in or get him out.”

“Piece of cake,” Eggsy said, but four hours later had made no progress at all. 

“Who does he socialise with?” Harry asked, tapping his fountain pen thoughtfully against his lip. He was sitting out, dressed but hair wet from the shower he’d taken after his third and last physio session of the day. He was sketching a diagram of the problem in his Moleskine notebook - electronics were all very well and good, but sometimes brainstorming worked best freehand. “Who are his links?”

“A load of bastards,” Eggsy said, his voice gloomy. He was on a bench by the river now, with his glasses maxed out on magnification. “Rich as fuck and massively corrupt with significant neo-nazi leanings and incidentally, did I mention they’re all bastards?”

“All… bastards…” Harry said, obediently writing it down. “Tricky.”

“It just sucks, there’s no way to—hey, wait a fucking minute,” Eggsy interrupted himself, and let out a low whistle. “Check out his _wife_.”

Harry’s fluid pen stroke ended in a jagged little stutter. “Oh?”

“Ah, mate,” Eggsy said, rising from his seat and dialling back the magnification, “don’t worry, do not worry, I’m tellin’ you we are back _on_.”

Harry watched as Eggsy intercepted Elena Brinsk scant yards from her own front gate - and yes, fine, Harry could see she was attractive, in an obvious blonde sort of way - and turned the charm right up to eleven. He watched as her expression changed from suspicion to wary interest to coy intrigue, colour brightening her cheeks, eyelashes sweeping up and down. He watched as she checked the extravagant timepiece hanging off her slim wrist, scanned up and down the street, checked once more over her shoulder and then, at five PM in the fucking evening, Harry watched as Eggsy was shown into the mark’s house by his wife through his own fucking front door.

Harry replaced the lid on his fountain pen with a sharp click. 

“Nicely done,” Gareth said, approval mixed with incredulity in his tone. “I’ll give you this much - you’ve got balls.”

They were kissing, already; not three steps inside the opulent hallway, and Eggsy had her backed up against the wall with a hand in her hair. His other hand stuck an audio-visual bug onto a particularly loud piece of wallpaper, and that was just great; now Harry had two angles from which to view them. 

Moments later, a text came onscreen from Eggsy’s pocket: _What time he back?_

“Hour and a half,” Gareth said. 

Eggsy grinned against Elena’s mouth, tightened his hand in her hair. A moment later, another text: _Cool._

Harry stood up and started to pace. He didn’t want to watch any more, but he also couldn’t make himself stop. It was crass and made his skin crawl; Eggsy was being led upstairs now, through ludicrously lavish surroundings into a room with an honest-to-God silk-strewn four-poster bed. Her clothes were coming off, and so were his. Eggsy had managed to get another audio-visual bug stuck discreetly onto a porcelain sculpture of a rose on a nearby dressing table, and another onto the strap of her bag, now discarded on the floor. He pushed her onto the bed and sank to his knees, laying a trail of rapid kisses up her thighs with an easy confidence that made Harry want to break something. 

It was difficult to watch him go down on her, one hand between her legs, the other squeezing her breast; Harry didn’t know if the worst part was the sounds Eggsy made, muffled eager noises that Elena probably couldn’t even hear, or whether it was the blissful look on his face as he brought her towards orgasm. Then his question was answered for him: no, the worst part was when Eggsy rose to his feet and rolled on a condom and slid into her, one slow smooth push, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and arched her back. 

As Eggsy started to thrust, Harry couldn’t help but observe that Elena made an awful lot of noise for someone worried about her homicidal husband coming home. 

“Oh, yeah,” Eggsy muttered, and Harry winced; the sound of Eggsy’s voice went straight to his cock, but he didn’t _want_ that right now. He didn’t want to see this or hear it or even think about it; he wanted Eggsy on his own, all to himself, permanently. 

That thought made him go cold all over.

Because that… clearly was not what Eggsy wanted. 

“Oh, oh, oh,” Elena was gasping, and then Eggsy swore in Russian, the syllables running together long and low, and Harry snatched the glasses off and strode angrily to the window. Down in the hospital courtyard, a small group of patients in their hospital-issue gowns were standing besides their drip stands, smoking; a couple of nearby nurses were deep in conversation; a woman with a bunch of flowers was sitting on a bench, texting. Nothing provocative going on here. 

Harry swallowed, staring out but seeing that four poster bed, Eggsy naked and playful, giving a pretty convincing impression of someone having a brilliant one night stand. 

Harry had a feeling those images weren’t going to fade for a long, long time.

***

Electrodes on the scalp was never a relaxing experience, but apparently the results were reassuring.

“The waveforms have normal morphology, and the amplitude and frequency are appropriate for an awake adult,” Dr Patel told him, afterward. “Much better. And no more features of encephalopathy. Nothing to suggest recent seizure activity, either.”

“…Good?” Harry said.

“Very good,” she said warmly. “Bloods tomorrow, aim home Friday. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes, thank you,” Harry said, summoning a smile. “Yes, it absolutely is.”

***

By the time Brinsk came home, Eggsy had been forced to leave the premises - but not without laying down five different traps ranging from auto-firing neurotoxin darts in his sock drawer to poisoned toothpaste to a pressure-sensitive pad under his pillow that released a paralytic gas on activation.

“It’s a similar formula to Dorriata’s airborne bioweapon,” Gareth told Eggsy. “Merlin’s been having all sorts of fun in the lab.” 

“As long as it kills him slowly and painfully,” Eggsy said, with vindictive cheer. “That man is _nasty_ to his wife. Makes my stepdad look like a saint. How are those bugs looking?”

“Working fine,” Gareth said. “Pretty well camouflaged, too. Well done.”

“All part of the service,” Eggsy said, with a jaunty grin, and Harry scowled.

“We need a back-up plan, though,” Gareth said. “In case he doesn’t spring any of the traps.”

“Surely the back-up plan is we arrange for him to catch me doing it with his wife, and then we fight,” Eggsy said. 

Harry disconnected again.

***

Harry’s plastic surgeon, a large blonde woman in a very sharp suit, was extremely pleased with herself.

Her fingers were cool on Harry’s face, tilting it this way and that, gently palpating the healing tissue. “Excellent,” she mused, nodding, as if she were appraising a piece of artwork - which on some level, Harry supposed, she was. “And no pain on chewing?”

“None,” Harry said.

“Excellent… Do you mind?” She was holding up her phone.

“Er, no, no,” Harry said, straightening, glad he was back in the habit of shaving every day. “Not at all.”

She posed him by the window, took a couple of pictures. “Great,” she said. “Any objections if I write you up? It’s such a great demonstration of Harrison’s subcuticular sutures in a complex wound.”

“That’s… fine,” Harry said, and she smiled and shook his hand.

“Continue the anti-inflammatories until the redness has completely settled down,” she said, “and I’ll see you in my clinic in six weeks.”

“Great,” Harry said. His first thought was that he should let Eggsy know his surgeon had signed him off; but Eggsy was a bit preoccupied right now. 

He texted Merlin instead: _Plastics happy with my progress. Want to write a case study - might need cover story?_

The reply was near instantaneous: _Already prepped. Congratulations. Light fieldwork after the weekend?_

 _Can’t wait_ , Harry replied, and really, he should feel great right now. He should feel so very lucky. He should be thinking about celebrating. 

He sat and stared out of the window some more.

***

On Wednesday, Eggsy accidentally got caught up in a drugs raid at a country house gala that Brinsk had decided, at the last minute, to not attend. Eggsy wound up huddled with a red-headed countess under the stairs, while gunfire rained down outside. Huddling turned to shifting, purposefully; turned to low hushed grunts; turned to kissing and fucking and Harry had to pull the glasses off his head and glare at the ceiling, panting with anger, cock hard and aching.

“Hey,” Eggsy said on the phone that night, and Harry bit down seventeen furious questions and replied, 

“Hello.”

“How’s it going?” 

“Good,” Harry said. “How are you?”

“Ah, you know,” Eggsy said, mischief coming into his voice. “Win some, lose some.”

“No luck with Brinsk,” Harry said, neutrally.

Eggsy made a disgusted noise. “He’s like a cat,” he complained. “He has seriously got too many lives. And his wife’s blocked my calls!”

That made Harry feel slightly better. “Can’t think why,” he said. 

“Anyway, so Gareth’s flying out tonight, cos if we don’t get him tomorrow then buh-bye France.”

“Right,” Harry said. “Well, I’m sure the two of you will come up with something.”

“Mm,” Eggsy said, and his voice brightened. “Anyway, what about you? I heard they might be letting you out early?”

“Maybe,” Harry said. 

“That’s awesome. When?”

“Possibly Friday,” Harry admitted, and Eggsy made a noise that was decidedly interested.

“I’ll be home Friday,” he said, his voice dropping. 

Warning lights started blinking in the self-preservation centre of Harry’s brain. “Well, it’s not definite,” he said.

***

Gareth was tall, black, fit. He had curly black hair buzzed short, a jaw like a hunk of granite, and military bearing.

He was also, to the best of Harry’s knowledge, straight. Which was some small comfort when, on Thursday afternoon, after Brinsk had failed to be lured from his car by a beautiful women dressed in a gross excess of wearable personal wealth - a plan Harry had thought was fairly deplorable from the start - Eggsy said, “You know what, though? He is _bare_ homophobic. Proper old school, some of the stuff I’ve read. I bet he’d risk getting out the car if he thought he could beat up a couple of queers.”

Gareth looked momentarily horrified, then his expression took on that resigned pragmatism that Harry recognised from so many unwilling participants in Eggsy’s awful but generally effective plans. 

“It’s not very subtle,” Gareth said. Then, brightly, “And you know we could get lynched for that, here?”

Eggsy tapped his watch. “Anyone else comes sniffing, we give them some of this.”

Which was how Harry found himself orchestrating traffic around the Garden Ring of central Moscow, hacking into sequential traffic lights until he created a reasonably tight gridlock with Brinsk’s matt black Audi stuck in an outside lane. Eggsy and Gareth abandoned their own car down a side-street and walked down the pavement towards his location. Eggsy had a whole skit he wanted to do; Gareth put his foot down. 

“Don’t push it,” he said. Then, quietly, “Galahad, have you got control of the local CCTV?”

“Got it,” Harry said; with Gareth on the ground he was the obvious choice to run point for both of them. He had the nearest CCTV feed on the tablet in front of him, siphoning off the actual imagery and replacing it with looped video from half an hour previously. 

To his dismay, it gave him a really excellent view of the two of them. 

Eggsy was walking very close to Gareth, smiling up at him with the same expression Harry was used to seeing when Eggsy talked to _him_. Fucking hell. 

“Okay,” Gareth said, as they drew level with the Audi, “now.”

Eggsy laughed, jostled him, then walked backwards to the wall by the side of the street, a provocative slant to his hips. 

Gareth followed, eyes serious but body language matching Eggsy’s—and then they were kissing, fiercely, Eggsy’s fists closing on the back of Gareth’s jacket, Gareth’s hand coming up to cup his jaw.

Harry felt a bit like his chest was going to explode. He looked away from the tablet, then back; one of Eggsy’s hands slid up the back of Gareth’s neck, nails digging in. Gareth shoved him harder against the wall, pushing a knee between his legs. Apparently, Harry thought sullenly, Gareth wasn’t the sort of agent to do anything by halves.

It was evening, they were conspicuous under a streetlamp, and the traffic was at a standstill. Within ten seconds a couple of cars had started blaring their horns, and someone else was shouting some fairly colourful abuse in Russian; Gareth disentangled, making a show of checking over his shoulder with a grimace, then jerked his head at Eggsy and led him down a narrow alleyway, barely wide enough for a car. 

Harry realised his own fingernails were leaving red marks in the palms of his hands. 

Eggsy had been onto something, though—a moment later, Brinsk’s car pulled a U-turn out of the traffic jam and followed them down the alleyway. Eggsy had Gareth up against the wall this time, kissing him deeply and making some pretty convincing movements with his hips, and when Brinsk got out of his car and pulled a wicked-looking knife on them, Harry found himself thinking, _About fucking time_. 

“ _Na kaleni, suka_ ,” Brinsk hissed, voice hoarse with rage; the knife was trembling. 

Eggsy turned to face him, grinning, lips red with stubble burn. “That’s what your wife said,” he drawled, and shot him three times in the chest. 

Gareth was already around the other side of the car, disabling the chauffeur.

“Good,” Gareth said, tying the chauffeur up and dragging him out of the car, then slipping into the front seat himself. “Check the body, then get in.”

“Fuck yes,” Eggsy said, feeling for a pulse in Brinsk’s neck and then stepping back before the spreading pool of dark blood could reach his shoes. “Yeah, pretty dead.”

“Come on, then,” Gareth said, gunning the engine. 

“CCTV will be back online in thirty seconds,” Harry said, making the necessary adjustments. He cleared his throat. “Neatly done.”

“Knew it’d drive him crazy,” Eggsy said, as Gareth drove rapidly away. 

From Eggsy’s glasses feed, Harry could see that Gareth was staring dead ahead, back ramrod straight. His glasses were slightly askew, his collar was rumpled, and his eyes were a little… glazed. Adrenaline from completing the mission, probably. Probably. 

The silence lengthened into something conspicuous. 

“Alright there, mate?” Eggsy said, voice just charged enough to make Harry grit his teeth. 

Gareth glanced over, treating Harry to a front row seat as Eggsy raised his eyebrows, just a fraction, and then made a small but unmistakably suggestive movement with his jaw. 

Luckily - or Harry might have had to arrange for a large passing vehicle to sideswipe the Audi - it turned out Gareth really _was_ straight; his eyes cleared and then narrowed at Eggsy in a brief, amused glare. 

“Opportunistic little git,” he said, his voice rough. “You really would shag anything that moves.”

Eggsy hooted, kicking back in his seat. “Fuck off,” he said. “It’s a compliment.” 

Gareth snorted, looking back at the road and leaning on the accelerator. “I need a drink. Alone,” he added, when Eggsy opened his mouth. He rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head, mouth twisted in a wry smirk. “Bloody teenagers.”

“Fuck off, I’m twenty-five,” Eggsy said again, giggling now, making Harry want to grab him by the scruff of the neck and _shake_ him. His voice turned teasing: “What about Rox, is she a bloody teenager too?”

“Roxanne is an exceptional young agent who is wise beyond her years,” Gareth said primly, and Eggsy hooted again.

“I’ll tell her!”

“Be my guest,” Gareth said, voice rich and smooth again, and he was putting the Audi through its paces now; it responded eagerly, swerving sleek and close to the curves of the road, letting them clear the city centre and make towards the airport in record time. 

Harry hit the self-destruct button on their abandoned car’s license plates, tipped off the police about the body, then called the hotel and arranged for Evanoff’s meagre possessions to be posted on to his fictional new home in Switzerland; they would be intercepted en route. There weren’t many other loose ends to tie up - Gareth had done most of it, already. 

The mission was complete, and they were fleeing the country. 

Eggsy was on his way home. 

“Do you chaps need anything else?” Harry made himself ask. “Your jet’s waiting for you at the rendezvous point, Gareth—I’m presuming you’re okay to fly.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“You’ve got a jet?” Eggsy demanded. “That is sick.” A pause. “When do I get a jet?”

“When you’ve held an unblemished pilot’s license for a decade,” Gareth said, “I will buy you a jet.”

“Get in!”

“In that case,” Harry said loudly, “I’ll leave you to it,” and Gareth had literally rejected Eggsy _twenty seconds ago_ so why on earth was it making his blood boil just listening to their back-and-forth?

“Oh no, no, Harry,” Eggsy said quickly, “wait.”

“Needs must, I’m afraid,” Harry said, and cut the connection.

A moment later, his phone started buzzing. 

He took a deep breath, and picked up. “Yes?”

“Harry,” Eggsy’s voice came urgently, and despite everything for a moment it felt like no one else existed. “What’re you doing for breakfast?”

Harry blinked. Was this a play on _how do you like your eggs_ …? “Breakfast.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, and his voice went almost shy. “Y’know, I’m getting back tonight… you’re getting out tomorrow… thought you might like to get some breakfast? Together?”

For a moment, Harry was completely disarmed—and then the pictures flooded back. In order: the waitress, the croupier, Elena, the countess, _Gareth_ ; and that was just the ones he knew about.

“No, Eggsy,” he heard himself say. 

There was a pause. 

“Oh,” Eggsy said, and now his voice was something small. “How come?”

“Oh, well,” Harry said, feeling like his own voice was coming from far away. “It sounds lovely but I—I don’t think I’ll be up to it.”

“Right, sure,” Eggsy said, and there was another pause. “Would another day be—better?”

“Well,” Harry said, and his gaze slid over the red crescents littering the palms of his hands. He sighed. “No, Eggsy,” he said again, gently. “It wouldn’t. Not right now.”

***

A normality of sorts resumed, after that, in the next few weeks: missions blended into one another, new candidates had to be found and then new recruits had to be trained, not to mention they were working around to dealing with the issue of Arthur’s empty chair - so Harry didn’t, honestly, spend too much time thinking about what might have been. His eye returned to its normal colour, his scars fading to faint pearlescent filaments in smooth flat skin. He got on well with Eggsy when they were assigned to work together, and liked the look of him, of course, but it was altogether easier not to dwell on the details.

And if occasionally his willpower wavered - when Eggsy saved the day or fell asleep on him or got caught in the rain and turned up at the tailor’s shop, drenched and laughing - well, that was just human nature, wasn’t it? 

It would take more than a few moments like that to break down the self-control of Harry Hart. 

It would take something much, much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides*
> 
> Hastening to add: there _is_ one more story to come. It is colloquially known as "the payoff story". It will (probably) make it all worth it. And it is in the final editing stages _right now_.


End file.
